The wind had shifted and the fire moved inland. In a matter of minutes sheets of it raced along the streets. The crowds on Surf Avenue panicked and ran, trampling one another, when a creature all in flames leapt through the Dreamland entrance. It was Black Prince they saw, the beloved lion, who raced through the crowd and across the street into the entrance of an entertainment called Rocky Road to Dublin, a scenic railroad ride to an outdoor pinnacle. The crowd backed away in terror, more so when the police began to fire at the lion despite the mass of human life. The creature climbed the ride until he reached the top and stood there in flames. It was his trainer, Bonavita, who had raised him as a cub and was more devoted to Black Prince than to his wife, who gave the order to shoot him. It took twenty-four bullets before he fell, and it was said the police were so terrified of him they split his head open with an ax to make sure he didn’t somehow spring back to life. The crowd attacked the poor dead beast, vying for his tail and mane and teeth as souvenirs of this terrible night.
Sparks had been flung upon the roof of the Museum of Extraordinary Things, and the flames that raced along the eaves were impossible to douse. It was the only building on the north side of Surf Avenue to catch fire. Sardie had no choice but to give up his mission. He dropped the hose, which slithered across the roof and fell into the yard, water bursting upward in a rush, dousing the old pear tree. He went to the window, but the latch was down, and as he rattled it, trying to open it, he spied the wolf on the roof. The Professor had had contact with such creatures before, but only after they had been in the hands of a taxidermist. He had a dozen wolf’s teeth in his collection, bought in Canada for a small sum, which he had attached to the mouths of certain specimens to make them appear more vicious. He’d been the master of creature after creature, but not when they were alive and on an equal footing. He ran from the beast, but there was no escape in the air, and he tumbled from the peak of the roof with no net to catch him, and no one who could reach out and break his fall.
By then, the police began to shoot every animal they saw. Bears and their cubs, horses gone mad, trained birds that could speak in a dozen languages, several tigers, along with a yellow-eyed wolf perched atop the roof of a small museum entirely set aflame, a loyal creature who plunged into the dark garden, lifeless before he landed beside the house.
The tar on the streets was melting and a streetcar burned, letting off oily black clouds. Police went door to door, alerting those who lived nearby to flee. People ran north and east; they climbed into storm cellars and jumped into boats so they might head out to sea. By now the Dreamland Pier was smoldering. The Atlantic had turned dark with cinders and the seaweed washing onto the shore was sparked with embers, giving off the scent of hellfire and salt. Eddie stood in the grass that had already begun to burn. He thought of his mother, and how she had remained a part of him, how he’d carried her with him, just as his father had. He kissed Coralie, believing this to be their good-bye, but she pulled away and said “You know the world is ours,” even though the roof had caught, a line of flames flaring along the gables and the eaves where the Professor had fallen. Eddie wondered if Coralie would suggest they try to make it to the shore, though clearly that was impossible. Every inch between the museum and the beach was burning. By morning little would be standing, with more than four million dollars in property burned, and Dreamland completely destroyed. Johnson’s carousel, the Whirlwind Ride, Taunton’s Bathing Pavilion, Balmer’s Baths, nearly everything along the New Iron Pier would be ashes.
But rather than flee, Coralie pulled Eddie back into the house. Surely she knew it was a death trap, and that every extraordinary thing contained within would burn in a matter of minutes. Still, she insisted. They went through the kitchen, into the parlor, the pit bull following at his master’s heels. There was the cereus plant embellished with two enormous white blooms. This was the plant’s one extraordinary night, but already the flowers were closing, dying so rapidly it was possible for the human eye to see the life sifting out of it. The petals were folding up more and more with every instant, no longer brilliant white, but a pale dove gray.
Coralie led Eddie to the exhibition hall, emptied now of all living creatures. The only things remaining were bones and minerals and the preserved bodies of creatures that would never again be seen: the white alligator, the cat with five legs, the conjoined monkey twins that held each other’s hands. Coralie bid them all good-bye. They were already melting. The heat caused the chemicals inside the glass canisters to rise to a boil and the glass to crack. All at once, there was a wash of clear liquid upon the floor, as there had been in Coralie’s dreams when she was a little girl, when there was so little difference between night and day she expected her dreams and nightmares to greet her at the breakfast table.